<Alla Maestà Clementina Regina Della Gran Bretagna>: The Political Significance of Dedications on the Example of Selected Operas Staged in the Teatro d’Alibert in Rome (1720-1730) ANETA MARKUSZEWSKA University of Warsaw Institute of Musicology <Alla Maestà Clementina Regina Della Gran Bretagna>: The Political Significance of Dedications on the Example of Selected Operas Staged in the Teatro d’Alibert in Rome Musicology Today • Vol. 10 • 2013 (1720-1730) DOI: 10.2478/muso-2014-0005 The close links between music and politics, in particular: The growth of the opera is inextricably linked with the between politics and the opera in the early modern age are history of the libretti and the phenomenon of an opera a commonly recognised phenomenon, whose significance dedication, usually addressed to an aristocrat or the royalty. has been confirmed by recent research and the expanding In some cases, as confirmed by libretti from Rome and body of literature on this subject1. The opera, which London from the 1st half of the 18th century, the works originated around 1600 at Italian courts, aimed to glorify were dedicated to selected audience members, such as the power of the rulers and their states. Also Louis XIV noble ladies or the local aristocrats4. Already the title page of France was a master of operatic self-advertisement par of the libretto booklet bore the name, surname and titles excellence. The public opera, inaugurated in Venice in of the patron in special or at least augmented fonts. As 1637, established a new medium of communication with Xavier Cervantes aptly observed: “an artist could boast the the public. As it reached out to different social groups, protection of a particular noble, who himself was flattered it became an ideal medium for the transmission of the to see his name adorn the tittle-page of an opera libretto”5. central ideas of the time2. The importance of the opera The special address to the patron, of varying length, houses as points of communication with the public could praised his or her virtues, qualities of the spirit, merits and hardly be overestimated, as the genre was tremendously position, and requested the patron’s protection for the new popular and its attraction continued to grow ever since work, which was a constant element of such dedications. its appearance. In Italy alone more than 40 cities had Favour and protection were to be offered to the librettist their public opera houses by 1700, and this number grew if (most typically) he was the author of the dedication, - to nearly a hundred by the mid-1780s3. as well as the theatre manager and the composer. In this context let me quote another passage from Cervantes: “The role of the dedication as a public testimony of 1 At this point I will list only a few major contributions: the protection granted by an aristocratic patron to a Thomas McGeary, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain, librettist is of paramount importance in the perspective Cambridge 2013; Ellen T. Harris, ‘With Eyes on the East and of the interrelationship of mecenas and artist.”6 What can Ears In the West: Handel’s Orientalist Operas’, in: “Journal of Interdisciplinary History” 2006 no. 3, pp. 419-443; Robert a musicologist learn today from an analysis of those, as Hume, ‘The Politics of Opera In Late Seventeenth-Century it seems, highly conventional addresses? This article aims, London’, in: “Cambridge Opera Journal” 1998 no. 1, pp. 15- on the one hand, to present specific examples of the role 43; Melania Bucciarelli, ‘Taming the Exotic: Vivaldi’s Armida al of an operatic dedication in defining the relations between campo d’Egitto’, in: Vivaldi, ‘Motezuma’ and the Opera Seria: the patron and the theatre manager, and on the other – to Essays on a Newly Discovered Work and Its Background, Brepols 2008, pp. 81-102; M. Bucciarelli, ‘Venice and the explain in what way the libretto dedication suggested or East: Operatic Readings of Tasso’s Armida in Early Eighteenth- revealed the political functions and meanings of the opera. Century Venice’, in: Music as Social and Cultural Practice: Excellent material for such an analysis can be found in Essays in Honour of Reinhard Strohm, eds. M. Bucciarelli, operatic works dedicated to Maria Clementina Stuart née B. Joncus, Woodbridge 2007, pp. 232-249; Martha Feldman, Sobieska, wife of James III Stuart, claimant to the British Opera and Sovereignity. Transforming Myths in Eighteenth- Century Italy, Chicago and London 2007; Paul Monod, ‘The throne and protector of the Teatro d’Alibert (from 1726 - Politics of Handel’s Early London Operas, 1711-1718’, in: Teatro delle Dame) in Rome in 1720-1730. The fact that “Journal of Interdisciplinary History” 2006 No. 3, pp. 445-472; those operas were staged in a public rather than a private John Bokina, Opera and Politics. From Monteverdi to Henze, theatre additionally enhanced their political message. First, New Haven and London 1997; Aneta Markuszewska, Festa however, we ought to become more closely acquainted i muzyka na dworze Marii Kazimiery Sobieskiej w Rzymie (1699-1714) [Feasts and Music at the Court of Marie Casimire with the figure of the dedicatee herself. d’Arquien - Sobieska in Rome (1699-1714)], Warsaw 2012; Maria Goloubeva, The Glorification of Emperor Leopold I in 4 Cf. the dramma per musica entitled La fede tradita, Image, Spectacle and Text, Mainz 2000; Candace Marles, e vendicata (1712) staged in Rome’s Teatro Capranica and Opera as Instrumentum regni. Agostino Steffani’s Enrico dedicated to the Roman aristocracy (alla nobiltà romana), or Leone, in: „Opera Quaterly” 1994-1995, pp. 44-78. Ataulfo re de’Goti ovvero La forza della virtù from the same year, 2 One should naturally be aware of the fact that both the beauty dedicated to the Ladies (alle Dame). of the music and, quite frequently, also the noise in the house 5 Xavier Cervantes, ‘History and Sociology of the Italian Opera blurred the sense of the sung words. Still, the educated, literate In London (1705-45): the Evidence of the Dedications of the part of the audience had access to printed libretti, which they Printed Librettos’, in: “Studi musicali” 1998 no. 2, p. 339. eagerly read at home and in the city salons. 6 X. Cervantes, History and Sociology…, p. 339. 3 M. Feldman, Opera and Sovereignity…, p. 35. 46 <Alla Maestà Clementina Regina Della Gran Bretagna>: The Political Significance of Dedications on the Example of Selected Operas Staged in the Teatro d’Alibert in Rome (1720-1730) MARIA CLEMENTINA STUART NÉE SOBIESKA Clementina’s arrival in Bologne, on 9th May 1719 a proxy marriage took place9, followed by the ceremony proper Maria Clementina Sobieska (1701-1735) was on 2nd September in Montefiascone, a small town near a daughter of James Louis Sobieski - the eldest son of Rome10. The newlyweds moved into Palazzo del Re in King John III of Poland and Marie Casimire Louise de La Rome, a residence offered to them by Pope Clement XI11. Grange d’Arquien (“Marysieńka”) – from his marriage to Unfortunately, after a brief period of mutual fascination, Countess Palatine Hedwig Elisabeth of Neuburg7. On her the Stuart marriage proved a failure, as the husband and mother’s side she was related to many European courts, wife differed in too many respects. What survived much and her godfather was Pope Clement XI himself. In 1718 longer than their love was their shared passion for music, the youthful Clementina attracted the attention of Charles and for the opera in particular. Wogan, a loyal courtier of James III Stuart, claimant to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland, who visited the courts of Europe on a mission to find a suitable candidate OPERAS DEDICATED TO MARIA CLEMENTINA for his king’s wife. During the carnival of 1718, Wogan came to the Silesian town of Ohlau (now Oława), where Maria Clementina loved music and passed this passion the Sobieski family then resided. Of all the princesses he onto her sons – the elder Charles and the younger Henry. met during his travels, Clementina delighted him most In her royal residence in Rome, she eagerly held concerts, – with her beauty, demeanour, education, connections to which she invited Rome’s best performers. She herself and potential dowry. After prolonged and complicated sang and played instruments. An English gentleman negotiations, in which a number of spies were employed, visiting Rome on a Grand Tour recalled his invitation to the marriage contract between Clementina and James the Queen’s private concerts: “The Princess, who stood III was eventually signed, and in the autumn of 1718 by, addressing to the Doctor, in the prettiest English the young princess, accompanied by her mother and I think I ever heard, said, Pray! Doctor, if these Gentlemen a small retinue, set out for Italy, where her future husband be lovers of Music, invite them to my Consort to-night; had taken residence. Unfortunately, James’s marriage I charge you with it: Which she accompanied with ran counter to the political plans of the British king a Salute and a Smile, in the most gracious Manner.”12 The George I, of the Hanover dynasty, who persuaded Emperor gentlemen duly arrived at James and Clementina’s palace, Charles VI to imprison Clementina in Innsbruck. This where, as they reported, “[we] saw a bright Assembly of act was met with shock and indignation throughout the prime Roman Nobility, the Consort compos’d of the Europe, and still the Emperor remained deaf to all the entreaties he received for the princess’s liberation. It was Francia, Hibernia, & Scotia Regina, e nel rovescio vi si vede then that Wogan used his cunning and courage to free pure questa Principessa, che fugge verso Roma, dopo Clementina, and, thanks to an ingenious plan and the essersi liberata da Inspruck, nel medesimo tempo, che il Ré effective help of several loyal supporters – he succeeded.